‘Twin Peaks’ Review: Give Yourself a Present

To write a review of a mystery story without knowing how it ends is absurd. You can’t possibly know how skillfully the storytellers have laid out their clues until you know where they lead. With Showtime’s “Twin Peaks” revival, we don’t even know what (if any) mysteries David Lynch and Mark Frost, our maybe-messing-with-us storytellers, intend to solve.

But I’ll dive in and say I love the revival anyway, the way I love pie.

I don’t eat pie to solve it or because each bite brings me closer to a solution. (Unless the solution is death.) I eat pie because I love the taste and smell and texture of pie. As Dale Cooper (Kyle Maclachlan) told us more than 25 years ago, when “Twin Peaks” aired on ABC, “every day, once day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it.”

Which also means don’t overthink it. Cooper was talking specifically about coffee, and a lot of pieces written about the new “Twin Peaks” will joke about coffee and pie and logs and Douglas firs, because these are the simple delights the show endorses that we can all understand — whether or not we’re the kinds of viewers who create spreadsheets and binders and Reddit threads laying out our theories about what it all means.

The new “Twin Peaks” offers plenty of possible clues for that kind of detective work — the internet may need to build a new wing to house all the theories about what the number 430 means, or why Dale Cooper’s doppelgänger now looks so much like Killer Bob — but let’s also take a breather, and enjoy it for its sensory pleasures.

The way it was maybe always meant to be enjoyed?

Lynch is an strong advocate for meditation, and the new “Twin Peaks,” for all its wonderful lines and intriguing moments, might be best appreciated on a moment-to-moment basis. The wonderful, original show started to unravel when Lynch and Frost, under pressure from ABC (and us viewers) insisted on an answer to the instigating question of Who Killed Laura Palmer. Only after we had our not-very-satisfying answer did we realize it was more fun not to know.

Think about it for a minute: Almost every mythology-dense mystery show ended up breaking our hearts. Did we try to make them something they weren’t?

“Twin Peaks,” it turns out, isn’t at its best as a mystery, because mysteries need solutions. And things don’t need solutions to be delicious.

“Twin Peaks” is best when it’s about the state of not knowing. It’s about being mystified, not satisfied — except briefly, by lovely presents along the way. Being mystified involves an incredible mix of emotions — the childlike happiness in ignorance, and the very adult terror in not having all the answers. You can almost divide up the characters into the pure and childlike (Pete, the Log Lady, Donna, Lucy, Andy), the corrupt (Ben Horne, Leo, Jacques Renault) and the characters in between. There’s joy in the things they do and say, wherever it all leads.

Lynch, who co-wrote and directed the two-hour opening of the new series, is playing a game with us, but not the usual game, and we know this. In a conventional mystery, the viewer wins by solving the crime before the storyteller wants us to. We look for the gotcha moment of saying we saw it coming all along, because the storyteller got sloppy or unsubtle. We feel cheated in the game when we realize no solution is forthcoming.

Lynch manipulates these rules, and we let him. We’d be disappointed it he didn’t.

More than any other filmmaker, he gets to coast on being a weirdo: We give him the benefit of the doubt that if we don’t understand something, it’s not on him, it’s on us. And we play along with him not because we expect to win, but because it feels good and is fun.

He celebrates classic American images of white shirts and pink satin and diners and pie, which mount a wholesome defense against the more sinister, damaged world of drugs and booze and sex and murder. Velvet, red or blue, divides the light and dark worlds, like the curtains in a theater.

Coffee, slicked-back hair and motorcycles straddle the worlds of darkness and light. We suspect Lynch is making fun of at least one of these worlds, but we don’t know where his sympathies lie. He never resolves a story in a way that would tell us for sure, and I hope he never will.

Trying to decipher his work is hard, but enjoying it as easy as… I’m sorry, but pie. Savor what’s in front of you, right now.

I’m sure many, many viewers will be frustrated by the opening sequences of the new “Twin Peaks,” which aren’t so much scenes as art installations. Horror of delightful horrors, delight of horrifying delights, they soon gel into a narrative that follows, when it so chooses, a certain dream logic. Characters and words don’t matter as much as the sensations they convey.

“You’re a bad girl, Tracy,” one character tells another.

“Try me,” she replies.

Another line reading — “life in prison!” is an instant classic for reasons no one will be able to convey.

Lynch invites us to scrutinize these sights and sounds, to study his framing, try to make sense of that console (at least it… looks like a console?) behind the glass box. The views are magnificent, of sky-scraping buildings and trees. The show’s most immediately obvious change with the times is its use of sweeping, drone-provided aerials.

What hasn’t changed are the faces at the surface level. Lynch is known for casting beautiful people and filming them so beautifully that they seem like parodies of beauty. But the truth is he loves filming all kinds of physical extremes. He revels in all sorts of faces, from the ephemerally gorgeous to the square-jawed American to the comically befuddled.

One of the most underrated thrills of “Twin Peaks” is just watching the wonderful reaction shots of the townsfolk who just want to drive dependable cars or ride good bikes and stop off for a bite — the soap-opera heroic faces of people who just want to spare their homespun, boring world from those out to destroy it, whether through girls wrapped in plastic or barely-in-time drumbeats or demonic possession.

"Twin Peaks" is a bizarre, often seemingly nonsensical show, but it's a David Lynch thing, which means weird and crazy things that show up on screen mean something -- the onus is just on us to figure it out. So, in that vein, we thought the best way to celebrate Showtime's 18-hour revival would be to rank a bunch of the show's characters -- but in a weird, confusing way instead of the normal "worst to best" way. We may just be amateur David Lynches, but we think it'll be a damn fine time nonetheless.

54. John Justice Wheeler (Billy Zane)

Fake.

53. Andrew Packard (Dan O'Herlihy)

The whole time he was pretending to be dead was he just hiding in the library or what?

52. Annie Blackburn (Heather Graham)

Just a normal person and stuff. Generally that's a good thing, but this is "Twin Peaks" we're talkin' about.

51. Ben Horne (Richard Beymer)

Rich businessmen everywhere nodded in solidarity when Ben admitted he has no idea how to be a good person.

50. Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee)

Dead the whole time.

49. Harold Smith (Lenny Von Dohlen)

Agoraphobia is not as sexy as he thinks.

48. Big Ed (Everett McGill)

If this list were ranking how often each character made a confused face, Big Ed would be top 5 for sure.

47. Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook)

Became a better person because David Lynch made out with Bobby's girlfriend. Now that's what you call a character arc.

46. Jacques Renault (Walter Olkewicz)

Nah. Extra nah points if you watched "Fire Walk With Me."

45. Catherine Martell (Piper Laurie)

Is not good at puzzles.

44. Agent Hardy (Clarence Williams III)

Took away Coop's badge! Come on, man.

43. Blackie (Victoria Catlin)

She died.

42. Hank Jennings (Chris Mulkey)

If he weren't white he definitely would have been fired for continuously not murdering the people he's supposed to murder.

41. Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean)

Gotta admire a guy who keeps his gun close while drinking.

40. Deputy Andy (Harry Goaz)

I'm sure he's a perfectly fine boring dad.

39. Dr. Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn)

If I had to be any "Twin Peaks" character I'd probably wanna be Dr. Jacoby because he's got the chillest part (other than that time he got beat up in Season 1).

38. James Hurley (James Marshall)

Might be the most melodramatic character on "Twin Peaks," which is really saying something.

37. Evelyn Marsh (Annette McCarthy)

Exists to feed James Hurley's constant thirst for melodrama.

36. Dr. Hayward (Warren Frost)

Is good at knowing when people are dead and also at not really being Donna's dad.

35. Mayor Milford (John Boylan)

He was really just jealous of Dougie the whole time. Jealousy is bad.

34. Jerry Horne (David Patrick Kelly)

Gotta appreciate a bad lawyer who knows he's a bad lawyer.

33. Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn)

Ruins business deals, accidentally almost hooks up with her own dad, fights in the Civil War with her dad, has her romantic subplot with Coop ruined by Lara Flynn Boyle and then loses her virginity on a private jet. Audrey is a moral good.

32. Pete Martell (Jack Nance)

Does anybody not love Pete? Everybody loves Pete. He's just that dumb.

31. Agent Denise Bryson (David Duchovny)

It's still surprising, and cool, that Denise was on network TV way back in 1991.

30. Major Briggs (Don S. Davis)

Extremely dad.

20. Ronnette Pulaski (Phoebe Augustine)

You really gotta feel for Ronnette, since her whole purpose is pretty much just to be the "other one."

28. Lana (Robyn Lively)

The sex murderer.

27. Leo Johnson (Eric DaRe)

Nobody's a better punchline than Leo.

26. Bob (Frank Silva)

Bob will probably end up being president someday. Maybe he already is.

25. Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriskie)

Notable for not having any normal facial expressions.

24. Lucy (Kimmy Robertson)

Will probably be just as boring a parent as Andy... but she's still Lucy.

23. The Man from Another Place (Michael J. Anderson)

I'm not qualified to write anything about him.

22. Jean Renault (Michael Parks)

Michael Parks doing a fake French accent is always good in my book.

21. Agent Rosenfield (Miguel Ferrer)

Look, he may seem mean, but he loves you and that's all that matters.

20. Mike (Gary Hershberger)

What did Mike learn from all this? Best not to ask, probably.

19. Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan)

Get you a man who looks at you the way Dale Cooper looks at everything.

18. Nadine (Wendy Robie)

Of all the 30+ year-old adults who hook up with high school kids on "Twin Peaks," Nadine is easily the least creepy of them because she, at least, thinks she's also a teenager.

17. Maddy Ferguson (Sheryl Lee)

Looks like Laura Palmer but isn't. Get it?

16. Norma (Peggy Lipton)

I think she's named Norma because she's so normal.

15. One-armed man (Al Strobel)

It's not a crime to sell shoes, OK?

14. Shelly Johnson (Madchen Amick)

Shelly. Shelly Shelly Shelly.

13. Dick Tremayne (Ian Buchanan)

He's born and raised in Twin Peaks, but also he's British. So he's a great character.

12. Windom Earle (Kenneth Welsh)

As far as I can remember, he's the only character whose head was set on fire on the show.

11. The Giant (Carel Struycken)

He's a very helpful human being.

9-10. Eckhardt and Jones (David Warner and Brenda Strong)

Storm into the show out of nowhere and get killed before accomplishing anything. This is what we watch David Lynch stuff for.

8. Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle and Moira Kelly)

What exactly does Donna contribute over the course of the show? Not much.

7. Josie Packard (Joan Chen)

Is accidentally responsible for the best scene in the entire series (the room service scene from the Season 2 premiere) because she shot Coop, and that's all that matters.

6. Leland Palmer (Ray Wise)

Not gonna argue with white-haired Ray Wise.

5. Little Nicky (Joshua Harris)

Still think he's a murderer.

4. Log Lady (Catherine E. Coulson)

She got it.

3. Deputy Hawk (Michael Horse)

Spends most of his screen time either standing around looking cool or being incredibly useful in ways none of the other characters could imagine being. Nice.

2. The waiter (Hank Worden)

The milk'll get cool on ya pretty soon.

1. Gordon Cole (David Lynch)

Default no. 1.

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This is art, OK

"Twin Peaks" is a bizarre, often seemingly nonsensical show, but it's a David Lynch thing, which means weird and crazy things that show up on screen mean something -- the onus is just on us to figure it out. So, in that vein, we thought the best way to celebrate Showtime's 18-hour revival would be to rank a bunch of the show's characters -- but in a weird, confusing way instead of the normal "worst to best" way. We may just be amateur David Lynches, but we think it'll be a damn fine time nonetheless.